every single negative stereotype about women was dreamt up by men who were projecting. fight me about it.
“women can’t drive”
It is so well known that women are better and safer drivers than men that OUR CAR INSURANCE RATES ARE LOWER. Women get into fewer accidents, get fewer DUIs, and receive fewer speeding tickets than men.
“women never shut up”
Several scientific studies have shown that not only do men talk more than women, they also think that women have been talking for much longer than they actually have. Men interrupt and talk over women, dominate conversations, and still think women talk too much.
“women are shallow”
Lol next
“my wife is my ball and chain lmao”
Multiple studies have shown that marriage between men and women: Increases male lifespan, decreases female lifespan Decreases male depression rates, increases female depression rates Decreases male stress levels, increases female stress levels Increases male health and happiness, decreases female health and happiness Increases a man’s chance of getting a raise or promotion, decreases a woman’s chances of getting a raise or promotion
“women are too emotional”
Men love to say this about women after hurting them, in order to shift the blame and dismiss their feelings in one go. In reality, women are taught to hold our tongues and control ourselves quite literally from birth. We’re taught to put men’s needs and wants ahead of our own emotions regardless of the personal cost. Men are taught to do more or less whatever the fuck they want to women. Men take their emotions out on women while women are expected to shove theirs down.
I could go on and on but I don’t really think I need to.
This is an Anna’s Hummingbird; named after Anna Masséna, Duchess of Rivoli.
Also, evidently hand feeding Hummingbirds is a kinda popular thing. All you have to do is put sugar-water that’s been dyed red or any other bright, flower like color in your hand and stand around some hummingbirds.
It highkey looks like that hummingbird just attacked that person’s hand and is now drinking the blood though. Lol
I read that as Duchess of Ravioli and let me tell you that’s a GREAT name for a hummingbird.
I thought this person’s hand was bleeding from being stabbed by the hummingbird.
People reblogging this with “why not both?” need to understand that establishment Democrats (that is, politicians and those with power in the neoliberal strata) are never going to acknowledge their culpability in the military coups and world policing. They’ll stay focused on the Russian influence angle and use that as their neo-McCarthyite boogeyman for all the justified opposition to the party, all while celebrating US imperialism with their revisionist Hamiltonian history. If you attack both, awesome, but don’t act like the Democrat elites who write the narrative on this issue are going to ever attack both.
Howdy, folks! After surfing around Pennsylvania for a house to chew on, it became clear that one house was simply not enough to pay justice to this wonderful, Super Bowl-winning state. (CONGRATS TO THE BIRDS!!!)
I hope you find this #content soothing to those of you still recovering from your “sick day.” Without further ado…
#10: York County
(Reading a book about Victorian-era architecture)
“okay how can I make the worst possible version of this?”
#9: Chester County
Sometimes people send me houses that they describe as “cult compounds.” While it’s unlikely that every house fitting the description is occupied by a sinister death cult, it is interesting that there is a type of house tied to the idea of cults. Usually it’s a very large, plain looking house with small windows that has an almost hotel-like appearance. On the inside, they usually look like normal McMansions, not to say that that by itself isn’t sinister…
I can only assume at this point that the party hat is a key cultural symbol of wealth in the state of Pennsylvania.
#6: Montgomery County
How is it that every Montgomery County in the US is a verifiable McMansion Hell? Who was Montgomery and why is everything his name touches cursed???
#5: Also Montgomery County
I don’t even want to know what Freud would have to say about those stick-on hieroglyphs/caryatids. Really, I have so many questions about who was involved in the decision making process here.
#4: Chester County
How is it even possible for dormers to have a head-on collision??
#3: Bucks County
Ok but this is at least 8 houses and none of them are good. Let me offer a suggestion, some serious architectural advice: make ONE GOOD house instead of several BAD houses.
#2: Cumberland County
What would our Tour of Bad be without an abandoned, half-finished McMansion that died off during the heyday of the real estate bubble? Sadly, now this home is as empty and incomplete as people who tie their entire self-worth to architectural signifiers of wealth.
FINALLY…
#1: Butler County
This house is probably the one thing that dropped the ball more than Tom Brady (BADUM TISS). This house has every Pennsylvania McMansion Trope:
- several houses taped together - party hats - forms interrupting other forms - entire wings that make 0 sense
One can only hope this house melts before it sells.
Well, that does it for Pennsylvania! I’m putting together a Looking Around post on Infrastructure that may end up taking another week or two, since it’s a lot to cover. Join us next week for our Rhode Island McMansion!
If you like this post, and want to see more like it, consider supporting me on Patreon! Also JUST A HEADS UP - I’ve started posting a GOOD HOUSE built since 1980 from the area where I picked this week’s McMansion as bonus content on Patreon!
Not into recurring donations or bonus content? Consider the tip jar! Or, Check out the McMansion Hell Store ! 100% of the proceeds from the McMansion Hell store go to charity!
People often ask whether they should use Koenig’s made up words in real life.
He says yes, because all words are made up in the beginning.
He also quotes lexicographer Erin McKean: “Anybody who’s read a children’s book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it—that makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an arbitrary distinction; it doesn’t make a word any more real than any other way. If you love a word, it becomes real.”
Hello Friends! Today, we’re going to look at some common house terms, specifically related to roofs, dormers, porches, (and a couple diversions, of course). These terms will give you a foundation for how to talk about everyday houses, and give you an idea of how to classify houses by their basic shapes.
Even a very simple house like the one above can provide us ample opportunity to practice our terminology. This house has elements borrowed from “higher” styles, such as the decorative brackets commonly found in the Craftsman style, but ultimately it’s as common as a common house can get. Still, it gives us an opportunity to relearn terms we might have forgotten, like the different parts of a window.
The easiest starting point for talking about houses is the roof, as roofs are a great way to group similar types of houses without relying on style.
Roofs
Common Roof Shapes:
Sometimes roof terminology can get tricky. For example, the gambrel roof is a shape of roof, but there can be front-facing and side-facing gambrels (the example above is side-facing.) Center-gabled roofs are often confused for cross-gabled roofs.
Uncommon Roof Shapes:
Shed roofs, while very common on dormers, porches, and additions, didn’t really come into vogue as a distinct roof shape like the example above until the 1960s. Hipped with Cross-Gable roofs are found usually on large Queen Anne-styled houses, though there are some exceptions (they are, of course, the prototypical nub). Mansard style roofs look different on rowhouses than they do detached houses, and in later houses look almost gambrel-like, such as the example above.
Sometimes it’s difficult to tell what’s going on with a roof, like in the example below:
In this example, while the gable is centered, it’s technically a cross gable because it is attached to a projecting mass from the main body - the two masses “cross” in a T-shape, making it a cross-gable. Were the entire front facade one mass instead of two, with the gable flush rather than attached to a projecting mass, it would be a center-gabled house instead.
Eaves and other Decorations
Some of these are terms you can use to impress your friends (I know I definitely get some looks when I throw down the word ‘fascia’ at parties), but the key terms to remember here are rake and eave. The rake is the part of the roof that overhangs the gabled end, whereas the eave is the part of the roof that overhangs the side walls.
The cornice is commonly referred to as the “trim”. The frieze is kind of like a baseboard but for the roof, and, like the cornice, is omitted on some more plain houses.
When the eaves have a closed soffit (some eaves have open soffits, like on craftsman houses), they are called “boxed” or “closed” eaves. On newer houses, gutters often cover the fascia.
On some common houses, some roofs are more ornamental, for example, on even the plainest of Craftsman bungalows, there are a lot of interesting details:
Dormers
The names of dormers follow the shape of their respective roofs. A dormer with a gabled roof is a gabled dormer, for example. Some dormers earn their names for other reasons, however, hence this handy guide:
A few subtypes of common houses are recognizable by their dormers, such as the adorable twin gabled dormers of so-called “Cape Cod”:
However, it is important to note that the Cape Cod isn’t it’s own style, but rather a specific layout common to Minimal Traditional houses. Houses with gambrel or mansard roofs and split-level colonials (such as the example used for the “wall dormer” above) usually have embedded wall dormers above or through the cornice line.
Some houses are notable for their lack of dormers. The rooflines of ranch houses, for example, are too low-pitched for any significant second story space - ranch houses, rendering dormers pointless:
Porches
Ahh yes, time for @porchrates favorite part of the post. Porches are commonly described by their height and how much of the house they take up:
A portico is another name for a covered entry porch. The gabled part of a portico is called a pediment, because on many classically styled houses (e.g. Greek Revival or Neoclassical), they borrow the proportions and pared-down details of the pediments found in usually Greek (but sometimes Roman) temple architecture.
A wrap porch (a porch that extends around to at least one adjacent side of the house) is often called a veranda, though this usually refers to porches that wrap around at least three sides of the house, such as the porches commonly found on Southern Colonial plantation homes and large, rambling Queen Anne houses. A porch that covers the full facade is called a full-facade porch.
Full-facade porches are in some way integrated into the roofline (they may be interrupted by dormer(s), like in the example above). If there is a gap between the top of the porch and the eaves of the roof, the porch is sometimes referred to as a full-width porch rather than a full-facade porch.
One last thing about porches: houses with very shallow porches (less than 4 feet) have either had the porch put on as an addition, or, more likely, the porch is decorative - a clear sign of a house built in the last 30 years.
(Insert Joke™ about something something new houses something something shallow)
Anyways, folks, that does it for Round One of Common House Terms! Stay tuned for a special Labor Day week of McMansion Hell, with a New Hampshire McMansion tomorrow, a New Jersey (!!!) McMansion on Tuesday, and the next installment of Common House Terms: Materials and Windows on Saturday!!
OH AND ONE MORE THING
Are YOU in the Baltimore metro area?? Do you want to witness me give a live diss on McMansions and talk about my rad as hell politics in one of the 3 coffee shops I write this blog in? Well you’re in luck because Thursday, September 7th, I’ll be doing a McMansion Hell LIVE event at Red Emma’s Bookstore & Coffeehouse. More info here, if you’re up to it.
If you like this post, and want to see more like it, consider supporting me on Patreon!Also JUST A HEADS UP - I’ve started posting a GOOD HOUSE built since 1980 from the area where I picked this week’s McMansion as bonus content on Patreon!
